


Aphrodisiac

by aimmyarrowshigh



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Restaurant, Chef!Harry, Food, M/M, Seduction, chef!au, waiter!Louis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-23
Updated: 2013-05-23
Packaged: 2017-12-12 17:52:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/814316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aimmyarrowshigh/pseuds/aimmyarrowshigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day he made roasted asparagus tips wrapped in Serrano ham with lemon aïoli, Louis knew: Harry Styles was trying to seduce him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aphrodisiac

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings** : Language, maybe; sexual content. I've also been informed that the amount of bacon in the foodie parts is alarming to vegetarians.  
>  **Disclaimer** : I don't own anything. No claim of knowledge or veracity is made towards anyone in the story and no aspersions or claims of character are to be inferred. I have no connection nor permissions from One Direction, X-Factor, Simon Cowell, SyCo Inc., Sony, ITV, or Columbia Records. No libel intended.
> 
> ORIGINALLY POSTED [HERE](http://aimmyarrowshigh.livejournal.com/95137.html) on 29 February 2012.

** Aphrodisiac **

The day he made roasted asparagus tips wrapped in Serrano ham with lemon aïoli, Louis knew.

Harry Styles was trying to seduce him.

His huge green eyes had twinkled as he Louis staring at the curl of his fingers as Harry rolled the long asparagus shoots in the thin, almost translucent, indecently red Spanish cured ham.

Louis swallowed reflexively.

Harry winked.

Louis looked away.

He had only been serving at One Direction for about three weeks, so Louis was still certain that eventually, his heart would stop palpitating at the sight of the executive chef’s perfect face. He was one of Food & Wine’s 10 Best New Chefs, and one of People’s 50 Most Beautiful People. If the culinary industry were duly represented, he would have easily made Time’s 100 Most Influential list.

And Louis was a 26-year-old waiter, dying under the weight of hospitality school loans.

It was all very unfair.

But Harry winked at him, and Louis stumbled a little, and he knew:

Harry wanted in his pants.

Louis still had his brain lost in thoughts of Harry and what his talented hands could probably do when he went to the staff cooler at the end of the night to take his “thank you” bag – Harry always made sure to leave every employee of One Direction with a sandwich and some homemade potato chips at the end of their shift, a way of showing his appreciation for their hard work.

But when Louis got back to his rathole apartment and opened the bag, his jaw dropped.

Nestled into the corner of the little container was a small serving of roasted asparagus tips wrapped in Serrano ham with lemon aïoli.

And a note.

_It seems you have an affinity for this… have an excellent night. HS_

* * *

The first time they kissed was the day Harry quartered fresh figs and tossed them with mozzarella di bufala and prosciutto and drizzled it all with Australian olive oil, white balsamic vinegar, and cracked Tellicherry pepper.

A week had passed since what Louis had deemed “The Asparagus Incident.”

He huddled in the back of the beverage cooler, clutching a bottle of Merlot and seething, when Harry himself rushed inside.

He looked a little startled to see Louis, but registered his expression immediately.

“Mr. Tomlinson? Louis?” he asked tentatively. “What’s wrong?” He took a few long steps towards his and put his hand on Louis’ shoulder in concern.

His hand was so warm.

And so big.

Louis’s lips pursed and one eyebrow arched up angrily. “Oh – just – the businessman from Los Angeles keeps calling me ‘poofter.’ I’m getting really frustrated, and he just keeps ordering more wine… he’s not drunk enough that I can actually cut him off yet. But – ugh, I know it’s just going to get worse.” 

Harry’s stormy eyes suddenly crackled dangerous. 

“I’ll go remove him from the premises herself,” he said in a voice so silky that it could have been sesame oil. He was dangerous calm, like water about to boil.

Louis took a quick step towards Harry, reaching a hand out to placate him. “Oh, no, Harry – I mean, Mr. Styles – “

“Harry,” he corrected softly.

“Harry,” Louis repeated. “Please, don’t bother yourself on my account. I’m a waiter; dealing with pricks is basically my job.”

Harry closed the gap between them and gently laid one huge, warm hand against Louis’ face. “And as far as I’m concerned, Louis, my job is protecting you.” He blushed and coughed and ran a hand through his famously curly hair. “You’re – you’re an asset to my restaurant, and er – everything that happens here is a reflection on my name so… basically, I have to – ”

“Thank you,” Louis interrupted.

He smiled at Harry, a true, quirky smile. 

Harry smiled back, endearingly timid and shy. His face dimpled.

Without thinking, Louis bounced up to tip-toe and pressed his mouth to his. Harry’s lips were unmoving, but soft… startled. 

Louis pulled back and immediately took two steps away. “I’m sorry, please don’t – I mean I guess you have to fire… I’m sor—”

Harry’s mouth was against Louis’ again, blazing and frantic this time as he lifted him up, crushing his to his body so tightly that he could feel the outline of Harry’s cock pressed against him through Harry’s crisp white uniform. Harry backed them into the metal wall of the cooler, holding Louis captive against him as his tongue found Louis’, slow and sinuous and tinglingcold with mint.

Louis whimpered into Harry’s lips, wrapping his legs around Harry’s thighs for better leverage into the kiss. He folded his arms around Harry’s shoulders and threaded his fingers through his lush hair.

The bottle of Merlot crashed to the ground and stained the floor red.

Harry stepped back into the shards of sparkling glass and glossy wine. Louis slipped down his front, matching him toe-to-toe as they breathed.

“I’ll go take care of that businessman,” Harry said regretfully. He gently tucked a loose strand of Louis’s feathered brown hair back up off his forehead. 

“I’m sorry,” Louis whispered, unsure what he was apologizing for.

Harry shook his head firmly, then licked his lip and ducked his head to kiss Louis again. “Don’t apologize.”

* * *

Their first date was at Harry’s apartment, where he made Louis gorgonzola and Bennet’s bacon risotto with arugula and Garden Peach tomato salad, dusted with burnt sugar and aromatic with golden garlic and shallots.

The night of their first kiss, Louis worked a closing shift and delayed his departure, lurking just outside the back doors to One Direction until almost midnight, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

“Louis?”

Harry startled Louis, making him jump. 

“Shit! Uh… yeah,” he stammered. Louis nodded and pushed a hand through his hair. 

A strange sort of tingling silence fell around the parking lot.

“Are you hungry?” Harry asked suddenly, smiling at Louis with dimples to rival the cherubs’. 

Louis grinned with a quirk again and nodded.

Harry held out his hand – long elegant fingers and pale skin marred with shiny pink burns and scars old and new, with callouses at the thumbs and a Band-Aid around one knuckle. “Come on.”

“Where?” Louis asked.

Harry suddenly looked bashful and he lowered his hand. “I thought – maybe – I thought maybe I could cook you something. At my apartment.”

Louis’ blue eyes sparkled. “A custom meal for one by world-renowned chef Harry Styles?” He smirked. “I guess I could go for that.”

Harry smiled a very innocent smile back. He held out his hand again, and Louis took it.

*

Louis grinned when the removal of Harry’s crisp white chef’s coat revealed a raggedy Ramones t-shirt, replete with several holes. He had a star tattoo at the inside of his left bicep, and Louis wanted to lick it. He grinned and shrugged and pushed one of his beautifully work-worn hands through the curly cloud of his hair, looking quite different from the calmly professional young man Louis had always known at One Direction. In his own apartment, he looked much more like a famished and shy twenty-four year old boy and much less like haute cuisine’s wünderkind.

“So, erm, just – make yourself at home,” Harry said, gesticulating broadly around the space. “There’s not so much to it, just – erm, the living room and the kitchen. Bathroom.”

“No bedroom?” Louis asked, then ducked his head, not meaning to sound –well.

Harry colored slightly and shook his head. “Er, no, just – converter sofa. I, erm… I don’t usually need… ambiance… for myself. I – I’m just gonna – kitchen?”

Louis smiled. “Okay.”

Compared to the relative ordinariness of the living room-slash-bedroom, Harry’s home kitchen was state-of-the-art opulence. Louis felt small and smudgy in the soft reflective surfaces of all of the brushed chrome and steel, warmed by the copper pots and molds hanging from his ceiling.

Harry selected a sleek, round copper pan with straight sides and the beginnings of a lovely patina of age and pulled it from its wrought-iron hook in the ceiling.

“I thought I’d make a risotto,” he said. “Does that sound okay?”

Louis nodded. He ran his finger around the rim of an enormous hammered wok. “That sounds perfect.”

Harry reached out and ran his thin thumb along the angle of Louis’ jaw. “Good. Go ahead and look around if you want, while I cook.”

“Okay.”

The stove lit with a soft click and the gently rushing sound of blue flames like water.

Butter. Olive oil.

Louis wandered the edges of the preparing table. He carefully lifted a heavy, dark-glazed tajine, admiring the delicate yellow geometric pattern brushed into the clay, marred with a single whorling thumbprint. “This is beautiful.”

“I got that in Morocco,” Harry said fondly. Garlic, popping and calming. Shallots sizzling. “I was seventeen, about to go to culinary school. Do you see that fingerprint in the paint?”

Louis nodded.

“That’s there intentionally. I got it in a marketplace when I was traveling with Malik, and the woman who sold it to me was this terrifically old thing who had been making pottery like that for nearly a century, and she said that every piece she ever made had a smudge or a dent or a dropped pattern, because only Allah could produce perfection. She had a beautiful sort of humility.” Harry grinned. “And I have a quite pretentious story to tell.”

Louis snorted. “Yeah… you do.”

Harry’s vivid green eyes glinted as the soft patter of Arborio rice against copper and soft, steamy sizzle of white wine against heat cloaked the kitchen and painted comforting scent across the room. 

“Do all of these have stories like that?” Louis asked, gesturing at the hanging pots.

“Most do.” 

Louis pointed to a gleaming saucier.

“Paris, when I was twenty-one.”

A small pan with deep indents in melon shapes, the metal scuffed to a brushed matte like silk.

“Tokyo, last year. That was the first time I tried fugu. And will be the last, I’m not all that sorry to say.”

“Is that the poisonous pufferfish?”

“Yes, and while it wasn’t terrible, I’m afraid I’m just too paranoid to eat it more than the once. I’ve never had a more stressful meal.”

Louis peeked around a huge rolled-lip saucepan and smiled at Harry, who stirred more dark stock into the risotto with a flat wooden paddle.

“Where have you been?” Harry asked, dancing eyes following Louis’s fingertips as he brushed over the heavy dents in a couscoussier.

“Not as many places as you,” Louis said easily. “Just France, to ski. And Ibiza once, just to see what it was like.”

“What was it like?”

Louis grinned cheekily at Harry around the hanging copper. “Good enough that I’ve also been to Magaluf.”

Harry chuckled. “How did you find your way to the restaurant?”

Louis shook his head. “It fascinates me. Food. Watching you cook. I never actually get to see the chefs at work since I’m at the front of house. And… I’m totally shit at cooking.”

Harry looked at his over his shoulder, aghast. “But I thought you went to school for it?”

“Just hospitality. I want – I love the _culture_ of food and I really, really want to become a restaurateur or something, but I – I’m really a bad cook. I can make a Pot Noodle, and this one chicken dish, but nothing else.”

As soon as Louis Tomlinson said the words ‘Pot Noodle’ in the pristine home kitchen of four-star chef Harry Styles, he regretted it.

Almost instantaneously, Harry was whirling around his kitchen, taking crisp green arugula, full of peppery snap, and Earl of Edgecombe tomatoes, bright orange as clementines, out of their green netting. Onto a pan beside the rice he laid eight strips of thick bacon, marbled heavily and studded with white and black peppercorn. 

He selected a small santoku from his knife block and set a cutting board in front of Louis. “Then you can help me finish the risotto. I’ll teach you.”

Louis looked at the shining steel blade and recoiled a little, holding his hands up, displaying the ten whole fingers he was quite keen to still have once this endeavor was over. “I really – I don’t know how, I don’t have any knife skills.”

Harry grinned cheekily. “That’s what I’ll teach you.” He slowly stirred the last measure of stock into the softly bubbling rice and turned the heat a modicum lower.

“Okay,” he said, moving to stand behind Louis. Harry was taller than Louis even though he was narrower, and when he reached around his to guide Louis’ hands, Harry caged him in completely. “We’ll do the tomato first, just to get the technique down, okay?”

Louis nodded. Harry’s breath was warm against his neck. 

“When you hold a knife, the placement of your hand is the key. That’s really all there is to it. Are you right-handed?”

Louis nodded.

“Good. Okay, pick up the knife – don’t grip it like that, it won’t bite you. And I need to move your fingers. Relax!”

“I don’t wanna chop my fucking finger off,” Louis mumbled.

“I will not let you chop your fingers off,” Harry laughed. He adjusted Louis’s fingers, enveloping his hand in his own so he could guide his movements. “You always want your thumb and your index finger to nest along the finger guard, here at the hilt, it helps you keep the movements concise. And now – curl your middle finger just around the bolster, there – good – don’t grip it like that, you’re gonna hurt your wrist. It’s not a _weapon_.”

“Um, it’s a giant knife,” Louis said, laughing in the back of his throat. “I’m pretty sure that it is, in fact, pretty much the definition of a weapon.”

Harry laughed and Louis felt the vibrations of it all the way down to his toes, with the whole front of him aligned to fit against the length of his back. 

“Point taken,” he murmured, gently curling his delicate fingers around the handle. 

He wrapped his fingers around his other hand, showing his how to core the tomato and slide the blade along the flats of his knuckles as he cut a fan of thin wedges, using the blade to reserve the meat and discard the seeds and liquid. 

“The rocket is different,” Harry said. “You don’t lift your blade when you’re chopping leafy greens… you just gather them up – like that, good – and keep your fingers tucked, good… and rock the blade back and forth.”

Louis wasn’t sure whether it was intentional or not, but the combination of the rhythm of their movement in rocking the knife and the warmth and sturdiness of Harry’s body surrounding his and the heady, salt-sweet scent of the rice and wine and tomato and the crisp succulent smell of frying bacon and the _definitely_ intentional brush of Harry’s lips against his neck was simply too much.

“Harry – ” Louis started, just as Harry led his to put the knife aside. 

Then he wrapped his hands around Louis’ hips, whipped him around to face each other, and kissed him again. Louis whimpered slightly and settled his arms around Harry’s neck as he gathered him closer. Even though Harry’s movements were frantic, his mouth was soft and slow and thorough, punctuating long strings of deep kisses with tiny nibbles against his upper lip, his cheek, the tip of Louis’ nose. 

And suddenly, he stepped back, holding Louis at arms’-length and studying his flushed face.

“I think the food is ready,” Harry said, grinning cheekily. 

“Oh – I… thought… okay.”

Harry tucked a long finger into the front of Louis’ jeans and tugged at them playfully, accidentally-on-purpose exposing his sharp hipbone. “I think so, too.”

Louis bit his lip and trailed his own hand down the length of Harry’s arm, admiring the way that he was so much stronger than he looked, his body made of the long, lean muscles that came from being constantly on the move in the kitchen rather than beefed-up bulk from wasting time at the gym. “I really fucking hope so.”

Harry laughed. “You’re a cheeky chappy!” He was delighted. “And speaking of cheeky…” he patted Louis’ rear end, “Go sit.”

“Shouldn’t I be serving?” Louis asked, blue eyes alight.

“Banter again. No,” Harry admonished. “There’s still plating to be done. And I think I can manage not to spill the plates all over the floor and to treat my customer nicely. Just this once.”

Louis smiled. “Treat me nicely, eh?”

Harry somehow seemed to smolder. “Very nicely.” 

When Harry brought over the square server of ivory rice studded with dark-veined bleu and little gems of fat bacon, arugula quick-sautéed in bacon drippings and bright tomatoes in a high pile of tangled salad on top to the table and set it in front of Louis, he smiled at him and he smiled back, suddenly bashful again and just hoping the pretty boy liked his food.

When Louis took his first bite, he moaned quietly, and Harry tried to discretely adjust his jeans beneath the table as he watched Louis eat, watched the movement of his jaw and the way his eyes fluttered shut, the long lean swallow of his throat and the tiniest dart of his pink tongue licking his lip.

It was unbearable.

“How is it?”

Louis opened his eyes to show him pupils dilated wide and ringed with sparkling blue. “Amazing.”

Harry’s cheeks flushed and his face pulled into an almost-childlike grin, so evidently pleased with himself that Louis couldn’t help grinning, too. 

Then something changed in Harry’s eyes, from one sin to another, and his wide grin dissolved into a lip-lick of his own. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

*

It was after one o’clock in the morning. It was the time of night when only lovers are awake, and Louis thought there was something infinitely freeing and desperately erotic about lying beneath Harry in the dark and silence of the middle of the night.

Harry had meant to let Louis finish his dinner. He really had.

But then Louis licked his finger clean of some stray bleu cheese, and Harry pounced on him.

They left the dishes on the table because Harry swept Louis up and carried him off before the other boy even put down his fork (which he threw somewhere so he could clutch Harry closer), using his elbow to turn off the kitchen lights and stumbling over his own feet into the living room-slash-bedroom.

Harry liked the way Louis fit into his arms – he was little and light, but so warm, substantial. 

He wasn’t qualified to work at One Direction. 

Everyone else he had hired out of the gate had been staffing his competitors’ three- and four-stars for a minimum of five years.

It was clear that Louis had fudged his numbers on his resume, and his most estimable experience was staff at Sticky Fingers. Before that he had worked in a Tesco.

A Tesco.

But he ate an ice cream cone, vanilla on vanilla, across the street before his interview, and Harry watched his out the window of the as-yet-unfinished One Direction, and he had a tiny smudge on his lip the whole time they were speaking.

He had to hire him.

Of course, Harry’s plan was flawed, as his plans regarding men always were. He neglected to consider that the time commitments involved in opening, managing, staffing, and performing the duties of Chef de Cuisine at a new flagship restaurant in a new city teeming with pre-established haute restaurants and, as a result, never actually got the chance to speak to Louis in person again after the interview.

So he watched him. A bit obsessively, maybe; his sous-chefs made fun of him miserably.

He’d show Malik and Liam now, though. 

Well. Not _now_. But tomorrow. 

Or maybe the next day…

“Bugger,” Harry muttered into Louis’ neck as he tripped over his own blasted foot again and they fell harder than he’d intended onto the sofa. “Sorry.”

Louis laughed. “Don’t be.”

Harry smiled and brushed his hair back from his face. “You are so gorgeous.”

Louis’s mouth turned up. “Thanks. You’re not bad yourself.”

Harry wet his lip and leaned forward to kiss Louis again, and they shifted together on the wobbly old sofa until Louis lay caged beneath him, one leg hitched up around his waist, two inseams rubbing _just so_.

“Should I – erm – should – ” Harry stammered as Louis licked a kiss across his Adam’s apple, “Unfold the bed?”

Louis snorted a little and wriggled below him, pushing him out of the way so he could begin to unbutton his black dress shirt. “The couch is fine with me.”

“I – but… okay,” Harry whispered. He suddenly regretted how many buttons were on the uniform shirts at One Direction and started unbuttoning Louis’ from the bottom up as he worked from the top down, their hands meeting in the middle before Harry slipped his hands around his ribs as Louis shrugged the top to the floor.

“You, too,” Louis urged, shifting closer to straddle Harry’s lap and pulling up on his t-shirt.

Everything moved fast after that.

The dull silver of a streetlight outside the window gleamed against Louis’ throat, wet and shiny from Harry’s mouth.

Two pairs of pants found their way to the floor.

Harry kissed the top of Louis’s foot, then his ankle, up his calf and into the ticklish crease of his knee. His nose and tongue trailed curlicue lines up his long thigh. Black underwear fluttered to the floor.

Harry knelt on the soft beige carpeting with his face bobbing between Louis’s thighs, one finger deep, then two and three. 

Louis kissed Harry’s chest, over his heart through his soft, sparse hair, and Harry started smiling too widely to kiss Louis back.

Then he was naked, too.

Harry sat at the edge of the cushions, Louis’s full weight balanced on his lap. Their arms cocooned each other, a weave of Harry Louis Harry Louis, hands splayed flat, kneading and needing.

Louis’s breath caught as Harry’s hand shifted, bringing his head between Louis’ cheeks and perfecting their alignment and then he was pressing into him. His long fingers trailed up between his legs and across to his hip, tracing his long fingers around to the round of his ass, sliding his hand over the curve and pressing his closer, deeper, _all_ the way – there.

Louis’s breath came in tiny whimpers against the side of his face as he kissed his ear.

“I’ve wanted this for a long time.”

Harry’s hands stroked up and down Louis’s long, tan back.

“Me, too.”

*

Afterwards, Harry unfolded the bed and blushed and changed on some clean sheets, and they slipped into the cool cotton and let it warm slowly against their bare skin. Harry buried his face in Louis’ hair and hoped that he would still want him in the morning, and the next night.

Louis fell asleep.

He woke up a short time later, when it was still dark out, when cold hands slipped around his waist and pulled his close.

“You smell like outside,” Louis mumbled, pushing his face into Harry’s arm, right at the tattoo. “Did you leave?”

Harry nodded into his hair. “I had to go to the market, do the purchasing and plan menu for today.”

Louis pulled back. He looked almost panicked, and Harry smoothed his thumb across Louis’ furrowed brow. “Did I – does my being here fuck up your whole day? I’m sorry, I didn’t – what time is it?”

Harry kissed him softly. “Four in the morning. I went when you fell asleep, around three-fifteen. But no, of course not. I’m glad you’re here, and I want you to stay.”

“Did you get any sleep?”

Harry smirked. “No. But it’s alright.”

“No, I – you’re going to be exhausted, and I’m sorry…”

Harry just cuddled Louis closer. “I’ll be fine. I did the purchasing, planned the menu, and called Liam and Malik and Niall.” He kissed his eyelid. “You and I are both out sick for the day. We have all the time in the world.”

* * *

The morning after, they had asparagus, black truffle, and Gouda quiche and piping hot tea, and all Louis wore was Harry’s monogrammed chef’s hat.

 

 

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